The War On The Middle Class Is A War On Latino Families

If you haven’t seen the infographic from The Center for American Progress depicting the stark contrast between middle and working class program cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy, you need to (click on the image to see the whole thing). What you’ll see when you do is that, programs like family planning and afterschool programs for kids are being slashed while the wealthiest people in this country are receiving billions of dollars in tax breaks. What’s more is that, even though we like to think of ourselves as a wealthy nation, the actual number of “wealthy’ receiving these breaks is quite small and the number of people being edged out of the middle class (that should be most of us) is growing.

Needless to say, if middle class families are being edged out of relative economic comfort into the working class, that means Latino families are at risk. Families like mine, who came to this country to work hard, who became educated and jumped from migrant farmworkers to teachers with Master’s degrees and doctorates. That’s the American Dream, the dream that has drawn people to the United States for centuries, a dream that’s in terrible jeopardy if things don’t change.

We’ve reported on News Taco that 22% of Latinos live in poverty in this country already — that’s 9.8 million households. What’s more, 43% of Latinas who live alone are in poverty. Latinos are the most likely to be uninsured of any ethnic group in the country. Meanwhile barely 1 in 5 Latinos gain access to a higher education. Add on more budget cuts that will affect working and middle class families, and it seems that Latinos are squarely in the crosshairs of this class warfare.

Which is bad news for the entire country — all 311 million of us.

The truth is, Latinos are the future of this country. Stifling our ability to take advantage of the American Dream means that, by the time the growing number of non-white children currently enrolled in public schools take charge of this country, they may not be educated, in good health, or have the cultural tools to compete effectively in a global economy because they grew up in such poverty.

Waging war on the middle class is waging war on the American Dream is waging war on the millions of Latino families in this country struggling for a better life and hoping to move up the class ladder — to grasp that American Dream. In effect, a war on the middle class is a war to ensure that Latino families will be unable to move up this ladder, doomed to a life of poverty, under-education and poor health.

Is that what the new American Dream will look like? For the sake of my country, my dreams of having a family and my dreams of making this country a better place, I sure hope not.

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD